The Mechanics, Burnley, 9th October 2005

Lets see, in no particular order : Youwanner,Blindness,What about us, Grass grow, Pacifying joint, Midnight in aspen, Bo Demmick, Clasp hands, Sparta, Open the boxoctosis, Higgledy piggeldy?, CARRY BAG MAN , Assume, Wrong place. That's all i think, come on it finished 40 minutes ago. Less than half full, little atmosphere but band tight again, M.E.S looks to be enjoying himself, fiddling about a plenty. Good gig but i prefer smaller club gigs for the Fall. Took a Fall virgin with me , a full on Blues fan , he really liked it. Should this be a worry? One encore on for 50 mins@. Funny ol' place Burnley , mullets still the order of the day, nice one. JCC entertained us as he does. Forget the Lada joke John.

just got back, good gig (i was the guy in the dragnet t shirt). on for just over an hour, boxoctosis was the encore. highlights were what about us and blindness. mes making good use of multiple microphones after knocking over a couple of stands and getting the leads tangled up. bed now (up for work at 5 )

And Mountain Energei to be added to the above.

I did wonder....live staple that one

A good night. Spencer was hitting the drums that hard a drumstick broke and shot 20 yards out into the audience. I think he must have had 3 shredded wheat for brekkie.

Started off with 5 mikes at from of stage.
Mes confused initially as roadie had taped first mike to stand. Did'nt take him long to remedy that issue.

3 mikes ended up in the base drum. Amp twiddling a plenty. Saw Steve smile for the first time.

Mr Boo

I say sack him.

mountain energei - MES had trouble getting into it...same thing happened at huddersfield...great once it got going though.

spence's drumstick went flying just as they were running up to the segue into Grass Grow...result was a total dog's dinner but all just laughed it off, including MES.

highlight for me was What about Us?...again the mistakes made it ace = spence didn't come in on cue, leaving Elena soloing on one stabbed note...then spence did a gargantuan drum roll and..bdooosh!..they were flying!

overall i thought this was better than manchester and huddersfield...just the right balance between tight sound and chaotic stage...higgledy-piggledy indeed!

oh yes....and a proper light show at this gig...new one on me.

It was a curious light show - pointing at the back wall. I thought that it was a really good night. The place might have only been half full, but I was standing right at the front for a change, and the atmosphere was really good.

Things of note - MES was on stage all the way through. While his lyrics were often unclear, he was really belting them out throughout the set. The microphone thing was funny as hell. It seems like he has rigged the stage so that everything is connected to his mic lead. He wanders around, and everything is falling over behind him. He stuffed both his own mics in the bass drum, and all the others ended up on the floor at some point. One thing that I did like was that the audience responded well between tracks. My last gig was Middleton. There it seemed that everybody was familiar with The Fall, and knew that applause would make no difference to the outcome, so nobody seemed to bother.

There seemed to be little or no advance publicity for this gig, so I was pleased that quite a few seemed to have turned up. JCC was really funny, and had a good rapport going with the audience. I would think that there would be a lot more people around here into the Fall if only there had been some more promotion.

Funnily enough, I thought that the most powerful tracks were Aspen and Mountain Energei. I can only think that this is because MES was more deliberate with his vocal delivery. I was stood right in front of Eleni, and at one point, thought that she was going to address the audience. I was mesmerised as she leant into the mic. What the hell is she going to say? "I am the Carry Bag Man!" Wow, one plucked from the archives.

I enjoyed only travelling 10 miles to see them for a change. My non-Fall fan friend who accompanies me to these dos was asking about the new album, and saying that he would like to own it.